


And Until My Dying Day

by crutchiebytheway



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4065247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crutchiebytheway/pseuds/crutchiebytheway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and David were the best team around. Together, they fought Goliath and won. They gave their fellow newsboys and child workers the rights they deserved. They were unstoppable.</p><p>They were soulmates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Until My Dying Day

From the moment Jack had learned what his tattoo said, he had the vague suspicion that his soulmate was going to piss him off.

"Sure thing, Jack." Medda had said. "What do you want me to read for you?"

The newly-named Jack Kelly stuck out his arm, so that Medda could read the words scrawled across his forearm.

Medda grasped his arm lightly, squinting at his tattoo. He scooted closer to her in anticipation. 15 years of not knowing, and Jack would finally learn the first words his soulmate would say to him.

"What do you think you're doing?" She supplied for him.

"What?!"

A phrase Jack knew all too well, and not one he liked. 

"That's what it says."

"I know that's what it says!" Jack stood abruptly, ripping his arm from Medda's grip. "I don't get it!"

Medda said nothing.

"That's not fair!"

"Look, Jack," Medda began, rolling up her own sleeve. "Soulmates are not that big of a deal."

Her arm was in front of Jack's face. Excuse me, Ms., can you direct me to the show?

"I haven't met my soulmate yet, and I'm doing fine, aren't I?"

Jack slowly lowered himself back down to Medda's outstretched arms, still pouting. Her hands were soothing as they went through his hair, and if he almost shed a tear, she would never tell.

"You stay here as long as you need to, alright, kid?"

It was in that moment that Jack realized that he couldn't stay in Medda's theater forever. Those past few days of safety had been nice, especially after the horrors of the Refuge, but he would have to go back to selling papers.

\---

"Time to get up! Carry the banner!"

Jack drowsily got himself dressed. The dream of unfamiliar faces all saying the same words was still running through his head.

What do you think you're doing?

He glaced down at his wrist. The first words his soulmate would say to him stared back. He was able to read it now. He had to be able to, if he wanted to keep his job and keep out of the Refuge.

"How'd ya sleep, Jack?"

"On my back, Mush."

Mush. Now there was a morning person if there ever was one. He found Jack's weak attempt at a joke hilarious, as he always did.

"Met this girl last night," Jack heards him saying to Blink, loudly enough for the others to hear. "Thought she mighta been my soulmate, but..." He shook his head. "She's still out there somewhere." Mush finished his words with a smirk.

"Move your elbow!" Crutchy yells.

Jack wasn't stupid. He knew that Mush's tattoo, I'll be fine, was a perfect match for the Are you ok? on Blink's arm, and he knew that was probably the reason he and Blink had stopped fooling around.

Not that Jack had minded. He never had any real romantic feelings for Blink, but, none the less, having him there had been nice.

The walk to the circulation desk dragged on. The announcement of the Delancey brothers' arrival only made things worse.

Betrayal. That's what Oscar and Morris Delancey looked like to Jack.

"In the back you lousy little shrimp," the former newsie-former friend-snarled as he shoved Snipeshooter to the ground.

"It's not right to do that," Racetrack commented, and Jack agreed. Snipeshooter was just a kid. 

"Shouldn't be talkin' bout lousy little shrimps, Oscar. Unless you're referring to the family resemblance in your brother here. That's right, it's an insult. And so's this."

Morris' hat in hand, Jack Kelly began to do the thing he did best; running.

Weaving in and out of the crowds, ducking under and going around obstacles, and even getting a few kicks in, Jack was on a roll. So much so that he ran straight into two other boys, almost knocking them to the ground.

The older of the two glares at Jack. Man, he thought. If looks could kill.

"What do you think you're doing?"

And there it was. 

There were plenty of things Jack could have done, if he had been thinking clearly. But he wasn't.

"Runnin'!"

\---

Jack finds the first excuse he can to keep the boy next to him. David, he finds out, is the boy's name, when Jack helps him get his extra papes.

His brother, Les, is eager to make a deal, and that only makes it easier. Les had a cute face, all the better for selling papes.

David was hesitant, Jack discovered. He questioned every move Jack made, right up until they escaped into Medda's theater. 

Where's that story? 

My father taught me not to lie.

I'm not running any further.

He was truthful, too, maybe too much for own good.

Synder still gave Jack the chills. His voice cut him like a knife. "Wait until I get you back to the Refuge!"

David, still, was nothing but questions. "Who was he and why was he chasing you? And what is this Refuge?"

Some soulmate you turned out to be, Jack thought while he answered. No, not soulmate. There's plenty of other people who will say that to me. Besides, Dave hasn't said anything about it. I should just leave him alone.

And yet, Jack still followed him home, sat with his family at dinner, and let Davey call him his selling partner.

Dave went out onto the fire escape with Jack after dinner. The open air was a nice contrast to the walls of the Jacobs' house that kept Jack inside. There were too many bad memories in being confined.

"So, how'd your pop get hurt?" Jack questioned.

"At the factory. It was an accident. He's no good to them anymore, so they just fired him."

Silence.

"Listen, Davey, my-my tattoo-"

He held his arm out for David to read.

"Mine says 'Runnin'', Jack."

Jack stared at the wall behind David's head.

"I mean, it's got to be a mistake, right?"

Jack swallowed. Hard. His hands reached out for the railing. "Right. No need to worry. Mistakes happen."  
The cool metal dug into Jack's fingers. He gripped the railing harder.

David's father called him in then.

"Jack, why don't you stay here tonight?" David offered.

He declined. "But your family's real nice, Dave. Like mine."

"See you tomorrow," David says with a smile. "Carrying the banner."

"Carryin' the banner."

The walk back to the lodging house seemed lonelier than ever. As he walked, Jack imagined what it'd be like to just mount one of those horses and ride off into one of his mother's stories, straight to Santa Fe. He replayed David's smile over and over again.

\---

It's David who says the words first.

"What, like a strike?"

All things considered, it seemed like the best idea. Boots was right, he would end up back on the streets, as would too many others.

Then what? How many would be locked up in the Refuge?

"They can't do this to me, Jack." Blink had murmured. Blink in the Refuge again, the very place that took his eye from him. Jack prayed he'd never see the day.  

"Yeah, like a strike!"

\---

David's idea took them far.

It took Jack, with chalk in hand, up to where the headline is written, where he can see David smiling up at him, STRIKE written in big letters behind him.

It took Crutchy to the Refuge.

It led to newboy rallies, where even Brooklyn was involved. 

It got Jack arrested, and brought to Pulitzer's office.

"You listen to me boy. You shut up and listen to me for once!"

Jack wasn't having it. He couldn't. Santa Fe would be nice, sure. Actual money and no Refuge would be nice. But he couldn't. Not when those boys were counting on him.

"I must have you scared pretty bad, old man."

"I offer you freedom and money, just to work for me again. Now, your friends, I won't be so kind! Now your partner, what's his name, David?"

Jack felt his heart sink straight through the floor. His smile dropped with it.

"I understand he has a family. What do you think the Refuge will do to him?! And it would be you who put him there!"

Pulitzer's finger jabbed Jack in the shoulder.

"And all the others."

He was sent back to the Refuge, and given time think about it, but he didn't need the time. His mind was already made up.

\---

"Jack! C'mon, run!"

David pulled him away from the hands of Snyder, no doubt meaning well.

"You shouldn't have done this, Dave, they could put you in jail," Jack told him once they were a safe distance away.

"I don't care."

"What about your family? What happens to them when you get put in jail? You don't know nothin' about jail. I'll pay for what we've done, but you get outta here, go!"    
               
And suddenly, Jack leaned forward and pressed his lips to David's. 

It was rushed, and rough. Jack still held David against the wall. His fingers shook slightly as they moved to the back of David's head.

He pulled away harshly. David leaned forward towards Jack, not wanting it to end.

"I don't understand."

"I don't understand neither. Just go! Get outta here, go!"

"No!" David shouts.

"Go!"

Jack could still feel David's lips on his when he sat in the Refuge, defeated.

\---

He was angry, more angry than he had been in a long time, and that was saying something.

It was hard enough to have the boys think he had betrayed them. It had been harder to watch David yell at him, and tell him he wasn't needed.

It was hardest to see David, Sarah, and Les soaked by the two people he had once considered family.

Jack pounded his fists, attacking,throwing the Delancey's away from David.

I trusted you! 

"I guess I can't be somethin' I ain't," Jack found himself saying.

"What, a scab?"

"No, smart."

\---

They won the fight against Pulitzer. Of course they did.

Jack and David were the best team around. Together, they fought Goliath and won. They gave their fellow newsboys and child workers the rights they deserved. They were unstoppable.

They were soulmates.

Jack realized this almost too late. He was already in Teddy Roosevelt's carriage, on his way to Santa Fe, the land of his mother' s dreams.

But he came back. He came back and looked David straight in the eye and wanted nothing more than to repeat that night in the alleyway, to kiss him right then and there.

He settles for a shirt embrace and a quick peck on Sarah's cheek.

"Meet me on the rooftop," he instructs Davey.

"I'll see you then."

\---

They sat together near the edge of the roof, dangerously close to each other. If anyone were to see them, they may have gotten suspicious. 

But nobody was awake at that hour, Jack had made sure. It was just him, David, and the city before them.

"Are we gonna talk 'bout this, Dave?" He gestures to his tattoo.

"I guess we have to, don't we?" David replied, showing his own tattoo.

"When did you know?" Jack questioned. "I mean, when did you really know?"

"That there wasn't a mistake?"

Jack could only nod weakly. It seemed his voice had left him.

"I questioned it when you wrote 'strike' on the chalkboard, and stared out at the crowd, smiling and laughing."

David smiled at the memory before looking up to face Jack.

"I knew when you kissed me in the alley."

Jack, on an impulse, kissed him right there. It wasn't rushed, it wasn't rough. It occurred to him, again, too late that he should have asked first, for fear of ruining things between them.

But David kissed him back, with just as much force, tangling his hands in Jack's hair and bringing him closer.

"How about you," David asked between breaths. "When did you know?"

"When Pulitzer told me he'd put you in the Refuge."

David took his lips off of Jack's neck.

"He said that?"

David fingers reached out for Jack's, who nodded in response.

"Only reason I was a scab in the first place. I can't lose you, Dave. Not to the Refuge."

"You won't."

Their lips met again, and Jack knew he was telling the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> why am i doing this to myself
> 
> (italics will be added later!)


End file.
